I wonder how much more energy would be consumed to power the factories to produce my walking treads each year...I'd probably wear out a pair a month if I walked all my "short" distance trips. And too bad my home chores don't magically get done without my involvement while I'm out doing my bipedal "Keep on truckin', man!" stunt down the shoulder of the motorway. Safe activity that, though a bit pedestrian. - We now return you to your normal forgetful mode of life. Cheers.

One important way to improve our energy situation is to again require improved mpg in new cars. Encourage public transit in cities and discourage suburbs to lessen demand for fuel. Try riding into a city on an elevated train line (Philadelphia, for one) and watch the cars in gridlock below. Plus they have to pay for parking when they eventually get to their destination.

And pull the plug on using corn for ethanol. Diverting resources to it is already causing higher prices as increased demand for fertilizer makes other crops more expensive. It takes too much energy to produce ethanol, although it's a nice subsidy for ADM and agro-industry. Switch grasses are a more efficient crop to use for ethanol production than corn.

I enjoyed and agree with the points you made in your article. There are a few points I would like to add that I think deserve noting. Biodiesel, SVO and ethanol certainly do have emissions, however, any internal combustion engine will produce emissions of one form or another regardless of the fuel being used. What I feel is the key point to note about these fuels is that the carbon emissions are a closed loop. By that I mean that the bio-matter (plants) used to produce the fuel removes CO2 from the environment as they grow. We then release that captured CO2 back into the environment when we use it. No carbon is added to the environment as with fossil fuels that have carbon in them that was captured millions of years ago. Further, no carbon is removed from the environment either, it is a closed carbon loop system. I believe the use of these fuels would provide the most benefit in the short run with the current vehicle technology in our cars. As you mentioned the production capacity currently at our disposal will probably not meet our current, much less future, energy needs. It is capable of supplementing our current use of fossil fuels. Using them as a stop gap measure and to help wean us off of fossil fuels until new technology can be developed to replace them. Natural gas does burn much cleaner than any fossil fuel currently in use. It is, however, still a fossil fuel which means releasing prehistorically trapped carbon into the environment. Electricity, as you pointed out, produces no emissions when the vehicle is being driven, but how the electricity is generated could be producing significant emissions and adding carbon to the environment. Nuclear generation certainly produces no atmospheric emissions but does produce high level radioactive waste. Since the TMI incident in the 70s environmentalists have strongly opposed further construction of new nuclear facilities, so it is unlikely that we could rely on that as a source for increased electricity demands without a major technological advance in the field. (Note that France generates near 80% of their electricity with nuclear power while the US is at 20-25%.) Hydro, wind and solar generation are also certainly emission free. However current estimates show that even all three combined cant meet our energy needs, again without a significant technological break through.

The argument that bio fuels are CO2 neutral only reflects one issue CO2. Bio fuels produced from crops require high energy input(much of it oil based currently), chemical input, large quantities water input and nutrient input. Essentiallt this type of fuel production mines water and nutrients and they have to be replaced. Massive destruction of rain forests and the species diversity now proposed and also happening to make way for bio fuel production will cause totally negative ecosystem/environmental destruction. Let alone the issue of food having to compete with fuel guzzling vehicles. There is the prospect that global warming will further reduce the ability to produce plants on this planet creating a head to head clash. The other alternatives such as hydrogen produced with energy efficient technology looks promising. The fuel tank and other issues relating to hydrogen have been solved for decades. We have local buses running on hydrogen and I believe Iceland is going all hydrogen(from thermal power).

Wasn't our globe a lot warmer during the Jurassic period of Earth's history than now? Were there not abundant wide-spread rain forests and plant diversity then? Or am I missing something? Maybe plants don't mind CO2 and warmth so much? Maybe the critters adapted to coastal swamps and thrived there too, when there were fewer icebergs in that world. Maybe Ma Nature is still as robust in this era as she has always been. Hmmm...Just dreaming about a history lesson here.

I remember seeing some TV show about nature that said they found plant life that existed in the arctic regions in ages past that were of a tropical nature.

Also deciduous trees evolved there leaf shedding nature in the arctic regions because in the winter there would be no light for the leaves to collect.

Even though global warming is real, it's not the end of the world, or great problem that people make it out to be. Coast lines may change a bit and deserts may spread. But people that currently live in colder climates will be enjoying warmer and more milder weather. Siberia might not be such a bad place to visit one day.

Even if we do reduce the greenhouse gas emissions - of cars and factories and everything else that human ingenuity contribute - to zero, the planet will continue to warm based on the natural cycles of the planet. All we can do is maybe slow it down a little.

The real problem is not global warming, but the end of Oil. As a fuel is one thing, as world transportation (not just personal) depend on fuel. No more japanese oranges at Christmas. Oil also provides us with many other things such as plastics, and pesticides. Huge factory farms are going to be in trouble without the pesticides required to maintain crops.

Alternative fuels are available. For Hydrogen to work, there will have to be a lot more electrical output, most likely in the form of nuclear power plants, and a lot of them. To make the Hydrogen that will be consumed requires electricity. Biofuels take up to much land required for food.

I don't know if our geenhouse gases have imapacted global warming as much as solar activity has, and I am not sure the jury is in on the amount of oil reserves we still have. Some geologists think that oil is the plate lubricant that the earth produces. Perhaps earthquake severity is heightened by the oil we are sucking out of the ground. Again, it's open to debate.

What is NOT debateable is the fact that oil per barrel is rising with demand, ad with India and China needing nore oil for their own industrialization projects, deman is obviously rising along with the price per barrel. It is also no secret that the terrorist are financed by rich oil nations.

Personally, I feel that the best alternative is electric. The biggest problem is how we produce it. Nuclear recators produce so much energy that it has to be "wasted" before it can be used. he power grid produces energy and underutilzes it during off peak hours, but it is not stored, its gone.

Photovoltaics have improved to the point of better than 85% efficiency, and that can power a home even when the sky is overcast. By using batter/hypercapacitor storage, that energy is not wasted, it is there to be used all night while the sun isn't available.

It is known that a voltage is produced perpendicular to a magnetic field, but the problem has been to create that magnetic field without the magnetic decay that requires either replavement of permanent magnets or using some of the electric produced to recharge the magnets (coils as in electromagnets) can be utilized.

Nuclear fusion will NOT be allowed in my life time. It is possible to produce a fusion reaction without a CERN-sized accelerator. Philo T. Farnsworth did it and ITT holds a patent on his design. But they will not license the technology and claim that it really never worked. So why keep a patent up on a device that does not work?

18th & 19th centrury physicists believed there was a source of energy called the ether or Aether (Aether preferenced to differentiate between it and the chemical ether used in medicine) and that it yeilded it's energy when prodded properly.

Look around you people! Nature does not burn fuel to create heat or light. Contrary to textbook science, the sun is NOT a fusion reactor, but an electrodynamo! The hydrogen fusion that is taking place is a result of the plasma enery that is bombarding the sun with its electric energy.

Walking, riding a bike or horse is NOT alternative fuel. Alternative transportaion yes, but not alternative fuel. The way I see it, we have come to believe that combustion in some form or another is required to generate energy. How about hydroelectric a la Niagra Falls. Hoover Dam, etc.?

Electric motors provide more torque (instantly) and more horsepower per watt than does a IC engine whether it is fired by diesel, ethanol, gas, hydrogen, or burning leaves. And electric motors have no exhaust gases to pollute or produce greenhouse gases.

I have sat here reading all the rants about why this won't work or why that isn't feasible. How about looking at what does work and what we can do now to make a transition to a fuelless economy? It will take years to amke the tranition, so the US oil industry will have plenty of time to diversify their portfolios and profit in a new energy paradigm.

Oh, and one more thing, that is NOT energy related, but relevant to this particular thread. Rush Lim(p)baugh knows nothing about energy other than the conservative lobby says to stay the course. Yeah, right. Where have we heard that before? In the meantime, US automakers are going down the tubes.

Technology is available today to get us off of oil. Willingness to buck the system" may not have reached critical mass yet, and until it does there will be just the same old, same old and everyone will just complain all the way to the gas station.

There is no doubt that internal combustion engines are not fuel efficient and that all the alternatives you mentioned would not add more miles per gallon. Some have suggested that alternative fuels may actually be less efficient than unleaded gasoline.

What I see as the real problem is how we see energy as a tool, and the paradigm of having to create it. First and foremost, this flies in the face of the physics paradigm that states, "Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only its form changed." The second aspect that is commonly ignored is the experiemnts and inventions that have been reviewed for a couple hundred years now, that show without a doubt, there is excess energy produced when we "generate" electric power, most of which is dissipated as heat. A measured anamolous energy spike is created when you have spark, just likethe ignition spark that fires your fuel in the cylinders of your vehicle's engine. Since it is of short duration it does not burn much fuel. So either the spark has to be made longer or the fuel needs to combust quicker.

One of the methods used to make th efuel burn faster is to preheat the fuel. Major explosion hazard there, unless it can be done via tuned port vortex and heat at the juncture of enetering the cylinder. I witnessed such a design (experimental) during a brief stint as a contractor with Ford (In SE PA!)and I was astounded. A 351 C.I.D V-8 with one liter of fuel was started on a test bench at about 4:00PM. When I arrived the next morning and hit the factory floor at about 7:00 AM, the engine was still running the test and the fuel container had dropped about one third. When I prodded the engineer at the workstation, he displayed a screen that showed the engine was using the fuel at a rate of about 249.xx miles per gallon.I further inquired how long before I saw that on a Ford F150, to which I was told, "Not in your lifetime."It's an engineering issue, not a Physics issue. There are many safety issues when dealing with fuel that is heated to vaporization. Just like a diesel, it could explode/combust just onthe compression stroke, prior to actual ignition spark. But I am sure that with today's simulation technologies, it could be worked out. And of course the almost nil emissions is as much of a plus as the high efficiency.

But I am a strong advocate for fuelless vehicles and energy production. If everyone of tose people that say walking is a better idea would put up a wind generator or solar array, we would rely less on fuels to provide energy.

Throughout history, we have always used brute force to solve a problem when a more subtle approach can gain the same rewards without suffering the side effects. It's true in natural medicines versus pharmaceuticals. It's not that science can't solve the problem, its the politics of science that prevents a new idea from changing the established dogma. The world is flat and that is all you have to know. Science took centuries to sway that opinion, and it will probably take as long to get the current paradigm to fade away. Electromagnetics or more appropriately Electrogravitics is the way of energy independence. There are more elctrons, protons, and photons that constantly bombard our planet from the sun alone, that just one hour of that power could light the Earth for thousands of years. So why are we still burning fuels?

Regarding nuclear, I say NO! Besides the hazards of fission reactors, and the disposal of all that waste, the complex design of these reactors invites danger. Paul M. Brown had a design that would even produce energy from the wast fuels that are to be buried. He patented technology that could even remove thorium from heavy water. He was killed in a hit-and-run before he was able to prsent his designs to Congress and the AEC.

We can make a change if we have the courage to do so. DEMAND that new technology be made available. DEMAND that research and development dollars are spent on testing these "old" ideas, and either put them to bed or start waking up to a new energy paradigm.

Ethanol releases its own carcinogens also contributes to smog. There isn't enough corn currently growing to meet demands. So why are they pushing it? Lobbyists of course!

Solar and wind for electric generation are our best bets until further development of other sources. Hydrogen isn't something I want in the hands of 50% of the population. Most people I don't trust with matches.

1) Forgetting for a second the energy content per unit volume of ethanol is lower than gas.

2) And that you need to burn oil anyway to produce energy to manufacture the ethanol.

3) In the end, you use more ethanol to do the same work--drive the same distance

4) Loop back to #1, repeat

And where will we find enough land to grow all of the corn? Top soil is already eroding at an alarming rate. How about fertilizer and insecticides? It takes oil to produce those. Don't even talk about the increased toxic run off into OUR water supply by using more chemicals.

Lastly, do you really want to take food off of the table and place it in your car's tank?

There's an election coming up next year. Would you want to get a few million people from the corn growing belt on your side with promises of subsidies, tax breaks, etc? This idea to use corn to 'liberate' us (think flag waving nationalism) from the middle East is about politics, nothing more

I will agree "corn based ethanol, forget about it" but there are other potential sources of ethanol. Switchgrass comes to mind.

And there are other biofuels besides ethanol, such as biodiesel.

Finally the myth about food prices. Our government today pays farmers NOT to grow food because if they all did, they would make too much and all go broke. Crazy, yes, but true. Sure there will be short-term spikes and dips and such, but it will even out in the long run.

If GM made a diesel ecospeedster in europe that got 110 mpg back in 2000 and a hybrid that got 80 mpg in the mid 90's and destroyed the EV1 that could be turned into a production model right now.

The answer is:Just like crime solving. Who has motives?The big powers don't want anything that is efficient on the road. It gives people too much power. Wind farms work. Solar panels work. Ocean energy works. Nuclear energy works. Hydrogen and Fuel Cells work. All these are essentially limitless power cycles, Sure they each have a cost. Ethanol and Biodeisel could be produced in great amounts, but it would require an enormous amount of acreage(maybe ocean acreage) devoted to it. Which requires huge investments....Not happening anytime soon. Fuel price manipulation delays this transition. By controlling the fuel supply through manipulation of markets, manipulation and control of law and legislation and mindsets of sheeple through the press, the powers control the world. Or at least limits industry diversification to handle unforeseen crisis. Thereby endangering the concept of a free world. Who owns the current fuel industry? Who wants to endanger a free world? Only large groups of people, with a clear understanding can change the current direction of the world.

It's all about priorities and will.Health as main priority:- zero emissions vehicles such as hydrogen fuel cells and electric are best imagine downtown L.A. or Manhattan packed with cars and no smog: priceless- hybrid comes next and all other follow

National Securiry as main priority:- anything that eliminates the need for foreign oil import: to achieve this, all alternatives mentioned should pitch in. Those that have a high potential of producing a higher impact but are not profitable should be subsidized. It's cheaper than fighting wars.

CO2 and planet's overall health:- electric vehicles with electricity from nuclear or non-fossil fuel plants. Subsidize research to replace current radioactive nuclear technology with .... well a small, controlled reaction that currently happens on the sun... for starters- take an overall approach: cars are not the only CO2 source. Everybody has to pitch in.

National wellfare:- bio... anything

People need to make up their mind what they want first. Those who don't want to do none of the above will take advantage of the confusion and will propose to do all of the above which amounts to nothing. Break one stick at the time and not the whole bunch.

Oil is a hard act to follow... it's been relatively cheap and plentiful, it packs a lot of energy and it's a liquid at ordinary temperatures and pressures. Unfortunately, it's getting expensive and scarcer and it's dirty.

Hydrogen sounds ideal but has serious problems. You can't liquify it at any sustainable temperature so it has to be shipped and dispensed as a high-pressure gas. It's more dangerous than gasoline in that it is colorless and odorless and burns with an almost invisible flame, but mostly, a vehicle would have to have a tank of it at high pressure which, in itself, is dangerous. It may be possible to absorb it onto something to store it, but that does no look to be able to store enough for a car. It also needs to be generated, which requires more energy than will be recovered by using it as fuel. With a fuel cell, efficiency may be high enough for it to be viable for some cars, but I don't see it as a widespread solution. It's upside is that it is almost non-polluting. Burning anything in air can generate oxides of nitrogen. A fuel cell may be truly non-polluting.

Battery power can be as clean as hydrogen overall and produces no emission from the vehicle itself, but can be very dirty if the power is generated that way, such as from coal. Battery technology continues to advance and for many uses, an electric car can be a viable choice. Batteries will need to be recyclable or much of the advantage is lost. I suspect we may be able to more than double the energy density of batteries, but that will still produce a car with a range of 400 miles or less (right now, a lot less). I'd buy one if the batteries could be guaranteed to last long enough to be economical and if the range hit aroung 200 miles in a car that cost similar to a gas-powered one. Charging isn't as much of a problem as you might think. Most would be charged overnight, when demand is lower. They will probably never be practical for long trips.

Biodiesel is probably the best choice for large trucks. It may be the best choice for cars that need to have more range than batteries can provide. It should be carbon-neutral on a global scale, but locally, it's still burning a carbon-based fuel. 100 square miles of Iowa may have better air from growing crops to make fuel for New York City, but NYC's air will still have a surplus of CO2. I think the biggest challenge here is to grow the crops without doing more environmental harm than burning fossil fuels does, but it can be done and it's currently workable technology.

Ethanol might help but I don't see it as a long-term solution. Production from crops is very inefficient and it needs to be distilled, which is a very energy intensive process. It also packs less energy than petroleum based fuels, but it burns a lot cleaner and should also be carbon-neutral.

Nuclear energy should probably be ranked with matter-antimatter generators. Sounds nice but is almost certainly not a viable mobile energy source as the radiation shielding needed would be prohibitively big and heavy and reactors are just too potentially dangerous to be in any place as risky as a vehicle.Hybrids, using biodiesel or hydrogen are possibilites with all the disadvantages of the fuels involved. LNG and LPG are fossil fuels and will never be major players in the mobile market.

Short term, I think we'll see someone produce a successful, economical electric car with sufficient range that it sells enough to spur the major automakers to follow suit, and I think we'll see biodiesel replace petroleum diesel in many places. It's possible someone will produce bio-gasoline, but not until oil gets a lot more expensive.

Long term, we have to get away from burning oil and coal and we probably need to get away from needing motor vehicles so much. This will take a major realignment in our society making public transportation and walking as practical as it once was. The motor vehicle changed our world in the 20th century. We may have to change again in the 21st. Remember, even if the environment wasn't an issue, so much of the stuff we've come to expect is made from these materials. Most plastic is made from oil.

Fusion is the only energy dense enough reaction to make enough energy to make water electrolysis feasible. Before we can even THINK of using hydrogen as a fuel, we need to get fusion to work. Otherwise, you're wasting energy to make Hydrogen (As has already been well estabilished in this forum) I think the solution of the future will be one of multiple fuels. I think someday in the future you will pull up to the pump, and have a choice of 6 or 7 different fuels, Gasoline, Diesel, LNG, LPG, Ethanol, Hydrogen, etc. The reason we're in such a jam right now is because we only use oil as the energy source for transportation. If we can make it so many different fuels are used, good old laisse faire will kick in and the companies will have to compete for our fuel dollars, making the best solution at the lowest possible cost. We also need more efficent engine designs, as the by far most widely used engine design, the 4 stroke piston engine, only attains 10-20% efficency. I've read on howstuffworks.com about the Quasiturbine engine, which, if it lives up to its boasting, it could be ba great way to decrease our dependcy on oil (www.quasiturbine.com) Overall, the best way we can make this work is to have more than one monopolized fuel so we can weather out the storm if one goes under.

Billions of dollars have already been poured into fusion R&D by DoE with no practical result such as a large 100 MW demonstration. At this point it doesn't look the technical problems with fusion can be overcome.

I would put my bets on a diverse portfolio of new alternative generation technologies. Solar generated electricity e.g. is only 2-3 times that of today's grid electricity so it is within stiking range. With reductions in cost (larger cheaper manufacturing plants) and improvement in performance in efficiency.. DARPA has projects aiming at 50% cell conversion efficiency. Pzev

Fusion is, perhaps, probably, the best way to 'create' energy. I mean the Sun is the most powerful thing we know about no? And it 'works' by fusion. The amounts of energy produced by fusion are immense, but as there is no success yet about harnessing this energy, we can only hope and pray. I would think that the combined effort of many people would do it. Mankind can do ANYTHING if we want to. There are enough atoms and molecules to produce energy for all of us...

Hydrogen is about the least dense element in the universe. To be made useable in a car it must be compressed and this is a huge cost in running the compressor. So costly, that it must be taken into account when advocating hydrogen as a fuel.

You are right in that we will have to move away from the internal combustion engine. It does not matter whether we burn oil, coal or bio-whatever. Although in different quantities for the same quantity of energy produced, they all produce CO2 and some, even more noxious sub-products,as are the cancer-promoting micro particles of diesel engines.

Switching to a extensive public transportation system does not solve the problem, as also such a system must be powered from some source.

My idea is that we will be forced to completely switch to battery electric cars. This will take the problem from having millions of privately-owned small engines producing CO2 to centralizing the electricity needed in few sites, that could be equipped with all the technology (that will be) available to limit emissions and sequester carbon at the source.

Those generating plants will have to be multinational (at least in Europe) ant take profit of all alternative sources available, such as wind farms, solar cell farms, and a few many others.

When the day comes we will finally have fusion reactors, it would be simpler to gradually equip those central electricity producing plants to the new technology, without a too much big impact on our lives.

Bio-fuels are too costly and still produce negative environmental impact. Hydrogen while environmentally decent is not a good source of energy and storing it is a major problem. Ragrdless how you generate it, electricity is the best "fuel" to power a vehicle.

It amazes me that when automakers produced these hybrid vehicles, they really missed the boat! Diesel locomotives are actually electric drive. The diesel engine spins generators that power huge electric motors. They could probably save half of their fuel costs by installing batteries and solar cells to provide charging. Even in a long tunnel where the sun don't shine, the amount of time the diesel engine(s) would have to run to provide charging would be much less that it does to provide constatnt power generation.the hybrid Prius and similar vehicles use an eleectric motor, but only in the city where speeds are less that say forty miles per hour.

Utilizing an electric motor to drive the vehicle full time, would mean the gas engine would run only to provide charging power to the batteries when required. This would greatly increase the vehicle's fuel economy. A small portable power generator runs between 4.5 and 8 hours on a small amount of fuel. It would not take that much fuel to provide charging to the batteries of "my electric car" because I would utilize all of the available technologies to reduce the need for the fuel to provide charging. Using solar PV (photovoltaic) cells, regerative braking, and possibly an inductive generator mounted on the axle(s).

If a Toyoata Pius gets you the equivalent of 36 miles per gallon, then my design will at least double that. The new $92K Tesla Roadster uses a 70lb. electric drive motor that accelrates 0-60 in about 4 seconds and can cruise about 200 miles between charges. It would seem that even a small solar array would extend that range significantly.

As for fusion technology, it has been here, but suppressed for a long time. Evidently there is a patent for such a device that was invented by Philo T. Farnsworth over fifty years ago. ITT is the patent holder, and althugh they claim that the cold fusion device does not woek, they keep spending money to keep a lid on the technology. There have been othetr inventions that promise to make the "spent" nuclear fuel useable, but that is also a technology that can't get AEC approval, even though it has been demonstrated to be safe.Moray, Tesla, McFarland-Cook, all created devices that seemed to be powered by the "Aether" and yet we still do not have one device on the market that their technology proved to be fact. J. P. Morgan told Tesla, that he we "inthe business of selling energy, not antennae," when Tesla told him about getting electricity from the cosmos, and here we are today.

An all electric car will mean that all of the industry supporting internal combustion engines will end, albeit new industries will support the new paradigm. But what about the "big oil" industry? DO you really think they are just going to allow their market to end?

you said "bio-whatever. Although in different quantities for the same quantity of energy produced, they all produce CO2"

biodiesel does not have to produce a NET CO2 gain because all the CO2 it produces was taken from the air by the organism that biodiesel is made from. It is CO2 neutral.

If you're thinking of the energy invested to process the organism into biodiesel, that could be solar or nuclear sourced. And, I think you could power all biodiesel production with biodiesel and still have a significant net energy gain, all CO2 neutral.

Caffiene. Lot & lots of caffiene. Without that I can't even get to a vehicle in the AM. Seriously, nothing on the market right now is economically viable - unless you factor in non-milage aspects such as use of the diamond lanes. What we need are the high fuel milage regular gas engined cars the Car industry is capable of making if the goverment makes them - by taxing gas (which unfortunately negatively impacts the lower and middle classes - the rich don't care if they pay $50 a gallon). We need to take the oil industries windfall profits away and use them for real reseacrh into high milage vehilce of all types.

even if you come up with a way to make gasoline engines more efficient. Basic physics will keep the gasoline engine very inefficient thanks to how it operates and friction. You need a lot of friction provide enough of a seal to generate a combustable mix for which you can convert mechanical output. It was a great original concept, but it's time has come and it's damage has been done and continues.

Using current day technology, moving to Electric only and solar on all homes & buildings effective eleminates 80% of our energy loads currently placed on oil and coal. This is a realistic solution that can be used today. The unrealistic part is getting the selfish human race to think beyond tomorrow -- some of the critical countries that don't want to participate include the US, China, Russia -- in other words the countries that could actually make a significant difference.

But many other ways of living can be established that doesn't reduce our standard of living (the work commute can be eliminated in most cases if people were educated enough to read & write), but does make us a much more energy aware and less of a planet destroyer. Ultimately the planet will get the last laugh as we cook the human race over the next 50-100 years.

Great thread! In my opinion one of the most overlooked fuels is Butanol. It can be fermented as productively as Ethanol but has a higher energy content, closer to the energy contained in gasoline. This means that you would not see a 1/3 drop in mpg like you would with Ethanol. Also, Butanol is not miscible with water so it can be transported via pipeline as gas currently is. An issue with Ethanol is that since it mixes with water it can't be transported by pipeline and must be moved in tankers, making it more costly and contributing to emissions.

Another aspect that is lost with biofuels in general is that if you are going to use food grains to generate them you will place pressure on the food supply causing food prices across the board to increase. As was stated in the original post, given a choice between food and fuel I will take food every time. For this reason the fuel needs to be fermented not from sugar but from cellulose derived sugar. The good thing about cellulose is it is abundant, farmers pay to have plant waste removed. This waste can be processed with enzymes (not currently very cheap) and turned into sugar for fermentation. Never impacting the usable food supply. Additionally cellulose can be harvested from grasses and fast growing trees in addition to farm waste.

The upside with biofuels is that they use carbon from the atmosphere and any emissions created when they are burned are reused, achieving a net carbon balance, hopefully. The problem with Hydrogen or Electricity is that they have to be generated somehow and right now the most efficient way is through fossil fuels. All you end up doing is moving the emissions from the tail pipe to the smokestack. It's better but not exactly carbon neutral unless all Hydrogen or Electricity is generated by wind, solar or wave farms. The good thing about Electricity is that we already have an infrastructure for distributing it where a Hydrogen infrastructure at the scale needed would be a huge investment not to mention the issues with packaging in cars that needs to be sorted out.

The upside of Biobutanol is that the barriers of transition and the impact on society are lower compared to other fuels mentioned. The fermentation plants would need to be built but the rest of the infrastructure and the cars themselves can remain unchanged. In the end however there will not be one magical fuel for the future it will probably be a mixture of fossil fuels, wind, solar and biofuels.

My Dad used to always talk about steam powered cars. I grew up listening to him go on and on about it. They are just as fast if not faster, they do not pollute, they are quiet, they have fewer moving parts, etc etc. I have also heard of how there have been inventors who have made carburators for cars that can cause there MPG to be upwards close to 60-70-80 mpg, I have heard alot of stories of the big Gasoline companies buying off many fuel saving inventions. The main problem is not coming up with alternitive fuel sources that don't pollute, nor cause us to be dependent on foriegn oil, or wrecking the environment more than we have allready, no, the main problem is that those who are the power/money hungry dudes in high places are getting wilthy rich, and don't give a D... about anything else. I am convinced that we have pollution free, cheaper, ways of making our silly little ( and big), transportation machines run down the roads. or tracks. It's probably gonna take some kinda catostropic world altering event to make us change our ways. LIke the Bible says, "The LOVE of money is at the root of all sorts of evil" Check it out mankind.

One problem with steamer cars is that you have to haul around a lot of water - the water weighs more than the fuel! It isn't practical to have a radiator/condensor on a car big enough to condense all that steam. Another problem is they are not particularly efficient - that is why the commercial railroads switched from steam engines to diesel. While steam may be clean, the fuel burned to produce that steam may not be. As for those legendary "high milage" carburetors, most are urban legends and don't really exist. The few that actually were made either (a) don't work, or (b) severely restrict performance, making them unacceptable to customers.

The determiner of the the efficiency of a heat engine is the difference between the inlet temperature and the heat rejection temperature. For a steam engine operating at reasonable temperatures and boiler pressures, this difference is rather small. That is where the rub is.

I, too, was a fan of the Stanley Steamer in the 1950's. That was when McCulloch Corporation hired Abner Doble as a consultant for their project to build a steam powered sports car. They gave up.

The 200MPG carburettor is a reality. Strip the ridiculous additives out of the fuel and it works fine. The additives clog up the catalyst.

In fairness, "white" gasoline is more likely to explode when you light a cigarette three blocks away, but it's all the additives to reduce "ping", modify octane levels and so forth which means that a car is using far more fuel than it really needs.

Well if you ask me, for now the best choice would be ethanol. Because with a few modification to most car onthe road today, we can be running clean ca. I think it could be a good solution for now. I day for now 'cause, the clean cars on the market right now are quite expensive! Anyways, that's my opinion!

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